And Then Daria And Jane Kissed
by Smileyfax
Summary: A series of one-shots depicting Daria and Jane pairing up during each aired episode of Daria.
1. Esteemsters

In my youth, when I read Buffy fanfiction quite frequently (I was such a delinquent), I once read a fic which was a series of one-shots depicting Buffy and Spike getting together in every episode -- even the ones before he officially showed up. So, as I sat here this morning after staying up all night playing Civ 2, I recalled that fic, and decided that, since I've really begun writing Daria fic in earnest in the past year or two, why not take the basic idea and apply it to Daria?

So, without further adieu, I give you the first in (hopefully) a long series of Daria/Jane one-shots, one per episode.

XXXXXXXXXX

Daria and Jane were watching a segment about UFO conventions on Sick Sad World. As they watched, Daria reflected on how they had met -- being shoved into the same self-esteem class by the incompetent school psychologist. Jane had told her she had been through the ordeal six times, so maybe she could bust them out.

"You know all the answers to the questions on the release test, right?" Daria asked.

"I've got them in my notebook," Jane confirmed.

"Well, why don't we just take the test tomorrow and get out of the class once and for all?"

"How would I spend my afternoons?" Jane asked, eyeing Daria.

"UFO conventions," she answered, thinking that if she was going to be surrounded by idiots all the time, she'd at least be surrounded by interesting idiots.

"Now you're talking," Jane said turing back to the TV.

They watched the awkward-looking redhead continue to make a fool of himself some more. "What else would we do?" Jane asked. "There're only so many UFO conventions a year, you know."

Daria thought about it. "I don't know. I'm sure we can find ways to keep ourselves occupied."

Jane nodded, then smiled. "We could always make out."

Daria shot a surprised look at her. "What?" she asked.

Jane cracked a grin. "Just seeing if you were paying attention," she said. Her tone of voice belayed something else, though.

"Jane...are you gay?" Daria asked.

The question seemed to embarass Jane, as she looked down at her boots instead of at Daria. "Um...look, just forget it, okay? It was a dumb joke."

"Uh, Jane...it's okay if you're gay. Or bi. Or whatever the case may be. It doesn't bother me."

Jane looked up at her. "Really?" Daria nodded. Jane let out a sigh of relief. "I was afraid you would leave, like most of my other so-called friends did." Jane leaned back on the bed. "Do you know how I got into the self-esteem class the first time? I came out to Dr. Manson, and she put me in there." She snorted. "Woman couldn't analyze to save her life."

Daria lay back on the bed herself. "God, Jane, I'm sorry."

Jane shrugged. "Not your fault. And sorry if I, uh, made you uncomfortable with...that thing I said."

"Uh, well, uh..." Daria said intelligently. "You didn't really make me feel uncomfortable." She reached out and took Jane's hand in her own. Jane's eyes widened as she looked down at the two hands, then back to Daria's face.

"Amiga...?" Jane said questioningly.

"Dr. Manson put me in that class too, you know," Daria informed her, the sentence heavy with meaning.

Understanding lit upon Jane's face, who then smiled. "I...see," she said, her heart starting to pound.

"So, do you want to go to a UFO convention, or..." Daria was cut off by Jane's answer. 


	2. The Invitation

"Hey. Partying hard or hardly partying?" asked one of the teens who had been giving Daria and Jane looks and smiles for the past few minutes.

"Hardly interested," Daria answered, unimpressed by the line.

"Sooo...where you girls been all our lives?" the other teen -- the one Jane thought was cute, Daria remembered, a little nauseated -- asked.

"Waiting here for you. We were born in this room, we grew up in this room, and we thought we would die here...alone. But now you've arrived, and our lives can truly begin," she said flatly.

The second guy -- Daria called him Bobby Bighead in her mind -- elbowed his friend. "She likes you!" he said. He turned to Jane. "Want to head to the make-out room?" he asked seductively (as seductively as a hormonal teenager can ask, anyway).

Jane smiled. "Yeah! Daria wants to go with your friend, too!"

Daria scowled very hard at Jane and kicked her in the ankle. "Ow!" Jane said, rubbing the injury. "Come on, Daria, it'll be fun. Besides, do you want to look back years from now only to say you squandered all the opportunities to make giant mistakes?"

Daria thought about it for a minute, then sighed. "What the hell. I guess I don't have any rules about kissing morons, anyway."

XXXX

Daria watched over her escort's shoulder as Jane and Bobby Bighead threw themselves rather quickly into an intense make-out session, with Bobby pressing Jane against the washer. Her own guy -- Daria called him Stripes, for the stripes on his shirt -- was still staring at her, grinning like a jackass.

"Are we going to do this, or what?" she asked, a little annoyed.

"What? Oh, yeah, sure!" He leaned in close and pressed his lips to hers, moving his tongue past her lips.

Daria examined the sensations she felt as she and Stripes played tonsil hockey. It was...interesting, actually. While she never gave much thought to what her first kiss would be like, she never imagined it would be in the laundry room of a cheerleader's house at a big party for the 'populars'. His mouth tasted faintly of the wine coolers that were being served -- Brittany's step-mom had apparently gotten them, with the understanding that no harder liquors would be served.

After several minutes, Stripes finally broke the kiss, told Daria his number, and left with Bobby Bighead. Daria resolved to strike the number from her memory. Jane approached, grinning ear-to-ear. "See, Daria? What did I tell you?"

Daria conceded with a shrug. "It was pleasant enough, I suppose. I'd rather kiss someone who was less than three standard deviations away from me in intelligence, though."

"Daria, I'm flattered!" Jane said.

"What?"

"Well, I am the only smart person you know, so obviously you were talking about me," Jane teased.

"Uh, not really..." Daria began to blush. Jane laughed and turned towards the door.

She stopped, though, when she felt Daria's hand on her shoulder. "I'd like to find out, though," Daria told her.

Jane turned around to find Daria really quite close. "Uh, Daria, I was just kidding?" Jane said with a hopeful smile.

Daria waggled her finger at Jane -- naughty, naughty, the finger said. "Now Jane, do you want to look back years from now only to say you squandered all the opportunities to make giant mistakes?"

"...I hate you," Jane faux-sneered. Daria put her arms around Jane's waist, pressed her up against the washer (as she had seen Bobby Bighead do) and moved in.

After several minutes, they were broken out of their activities by a loud shriek. "Oh NO! These shoes are SUEDE!" Daria looked around and noticed the laundry room was full of suds up to their knees. She realized why when she saw an open box of detergent on its side, its contents having fallen into the open washer which Daria and Jane had somehow started up.

"Wow," Jane said.

XXXX

Daria and Jane began walking back to the guard booth, "So, have fun?" Jane asked, smiling coyly at Daria.

"Well, I had my first kiss, my first makeout session, I found out I was bisexual, I ruined Quinn's shoes, and I'm going home with a bonus sock." She had discovered the garment stuck to her shoulder after vacating the laundry room...she presumed the washer had vomited it upon her somehow. "All in all, a great night." Daria reached out and took Jane's hand. 


	3. College Bored

"Thrown out of college without enrolling first. I am DAMN proud of you," Jane said to Daria as they walked home from the college preparedness workshop.

"Thanks. Hey, how did your college visit go?" Originally, Jane hadn't intended on visiting a college, but Daria had eventually needled her into visiting one anyway.

Jane shrugged. "It went nice enough, I suppose. I had Trent drive me up to Boston Fine Arts College, to see what they had to offer. I met this girl, Alison, we made out, I found out she was a hypocritical bitch, I left."

They walked together in silence for another moment. Then, Daria stopped. "Wait, what?"

Jane turned and threw a smile back at Daria. "Ah, so you were listening."

"So...were you serious?" Daria asked, as she continued walking.

Jane nodded. "I don't know whether I'm more pissed at her for being a hypocrite, or for kissing me."

"You didn't like it, then?"

Jane shook her head. "That's the worst part of it, I think. I liked it. A lot."

"Oh."

"I think what I need to do is cleanse my palate," Jane explained.

"Mm."

"You know...get rid of her taste with somebody else's..."

"Mm."

Jane cast a glance at Daria. Either she was being too subtle, or Daria was speechless.

They reached Jane's house. "So...I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow," Daria said.

"You want to come in for a snack?" Jane asked. "We have some sherbert in the freezer. I heard it's good for cleansing the palate. We could try some...together."

Daria looked at Jane for a long moment. "First of all, Jane, it's called sherbet, not sherbert."

"Ah." Jane felt her stomach start to sink.

"And second of all..." Daria sighed. "I don't think I'd mind trying some of your sherbet."

Jane smiled, and opened her door for Daria. 


	4. Cafe Disaffecto

"How about, 'The Bleakness That Lies Ahead'?" Daria asked.

"Too sentimental," Jane dismissed.

"'No Life, No Hope, No Future'?"

"Too pie in the sky."

"'Mommy's Little Hypocrite'?"

"Too much like a children's book."

"I wish I were dead."

"That sounds promising."

Daria was using Jane as a sounding board for what she should read at the opening of the coffee house. She had been roped into the duty by Ms. Li for not selling a fatal amount of chocolate to an obese woman with hypoglycemia, and was having difficulty choosing which of her depressing essays to read to her classmates.

"Listen, you gotta give them something they'll really appreciate. Picture Kevin and Brittany drinking in your words like an elixir of knowledge. Heady...potent..." Her voice grew huskier with each word. "...Seductive."

"Mmm." Daria felt a little shiver as Jane said the last word. "I think I have an idea...I'll write something new for the occasion."

XXXX

"'And so, as Melody Conrad fled Paris just ahead of the German occupation, she vowed she would return one day to liberate the city -- and the woman -- she loved. "Vive La Resistance, Lauren," she muttered to herself as the sun crested the eastern horizon."

After a heartbeat, the patrons of Cafe Lawndale began to applaud, cheering while leaping out of their seats and thrusting their fists into the air.

"Let's go stone the German embassy!" Kevin shouted. Nearly everybody else in the cafe followed him out as Brittany improvised some anti-Nazi cheers.

The cafe was left mostly empty, save for Mr. O'Neill, who was huddling backstage, crying at the spectacle Daria had made of the night (and at the gruesomeness of the story).

Jane walked up to the stage. "Melody Conrad, huh?" she asked, her eyebrow quirked. "Honestly, Daria, what is it with amateur writers and their self-inserts?" she joked.

"I wasn't the only person I inserted, you know," she informed Jane.

"Oh? Who else did you insert?"

Daria stepped down from the stage and took Jane's hand. "You said it yourself, Jane. I had to write something heady...potent..." She licked her lips. "...Seductive."

Jane gulped. "Yes?"

Daria leaned in close, close enough to feel Jane's breath on her face. "Vive La Resistance, Lauren," she whispered, and caught Jane's lips in her own.

They separated instantly at the sound of applause. It was only then that Daria and Jane noticed one other person in the cafeteria -- Andrea, still in her seat near the door.

"Aw hell," Daria said, blushing furiously.

Jane just squeezed Daria's hand and shrugged. "Vive La Resistance, Melody," she echoed, and did an encore performance. 


End file.
